Mushrooms.

Posted on 14 Aug, 2008 4 comments

Mushrooms not only look great, they taste it too. I don’t know if anyone is growing them and I wouldn’t know how to grow them myself, but I did have lots!
We were not living on the farm for long, if I remember it must have been the second autumn we were there. After the first heavy rains and the paddocks started to green, these mushrooms emerged too. But we hadn’t discovered them yet. One afternoon when I was walking around in the garden I saw some teenagers across our creek in the paddock walking around, bending over, picking things up, and bending over again. I thought that was rather cheeky, they hadn’t asked us if they could walk there in the first place. These teenagers were trespassing. I called out to them and they musn’t have expected anyone to be home, as they startled and ran away towards the road. Hubby, who was just turning home, saw the youngsters and followed them on his motorbike. I was very curious. A little while later he came with a big smile on his face. The kids were back too! He’s a softy that hubby of mine. He explained they had been mushrooming and in their escape had dropped the basket with mushrooms. They were just picking that up again. “Mushrooms?” I asked in surprise. So, I took my own basket and set off into the paddock. Sure enough I saw these little white things, which had popped outof the ground. I picked at least a plateful and went home. They looked nice, but what if??? I was a bit worried there would be a toxic one amongst them, or perhaps all of them. Well, no, that would not be so, as those kids had taken them too.With my harvest I went in the car to my neighbour, 3kms down the road. In those days we din’t have a phone yet! “Yes”, said my neighbour, “these are edible. You always know, when they are brownish pink underneath and smell earthy. Then you can eat them. Thanking her for this knowledge I went home and later on fried the things. How disappointed I was, they shrivelled up into next to nothing! We could just each have a toast underneath them and enjoy them. But, did I? Not really, they tasted funny, not at all like the ones who have been purposely cultivated.
The next year we had put supfosphate on the paddocks to improve fodder for the cattle, and those mushrooms never came up again. A few autumns down the track I was walking along a path in our pine plantation, when I discovered huge big brown wide mushrooms, yellow underneath. They were huddling in whole bunches underneath the pine trees and in quite an abundance. Then I remembered my friend telling me about these big brown mushrooms they used to get in Latvia and gather them to cook. Hmm, Latvia was a long way from us, 13.000 kms away. Could these possibly be the same ones? I decided to pick a couple and the next morning I went over to see her. Sure enough, she did recognise them and could she please have those to try. I handed my samples over and asked her for instructions. You have to peel them, then chop them up and then steam them, boil them or fry them. I suggested she’d come and pick as many as she wanted whilst they were still there. I never dared to tell her I was not game enough to try them out myself, having had this disappointed experience with the white field mushrooms. But she didn’t come and pick any, and neither did I. Perhaps they were only good tasting in her memory, lol.

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